Biden’s Border Walk–Communist Bugaboo Redux

Joe Biden decided finally to enunciate his border policy, a welcome to all comers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti and a reprise of Cold War politics.  The first three countries are run by socialist dictators, ipso facto among the world’s worst, most threatening leaders; and the fourth, Haiti, is a benighted, hopeless, failed state made worse by American muddling.  America set the ball rolling by supporting Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest and one of the most corrupt, baseless, and destructive presidents the country has ever had.  From Aristide onwards, the country has been ‘ruled’ by ambitious, defiling politicians until it is now a chaotic, ungoverned gangland. 

America’s adventurism in La Perle des Antilles from military invasion to DEA inchoate interdiction only added to myopic political policies.  So Biden’s now generous admissions policy to Haitian citizens is part guilt trip, part racial politics.  Haiti was the world’s first black republic after the revolution against the French by the hero Toussaint L’Ouverture, and has been a cultural icon of Afro-Caribbean culture since its first settlement.  A good bet to show his black constituents that he cares.

Of course given the nature of such an ungoverned and ungovernable place, the new influx of Haitian ‘asylum seekers’ will include some of the country’s worst gangland kingpins, drug potentates, and street criminals.  When the US first opened its doors to Cuban refugees, Castro engineered the Mariel exodus, emptying his country of the worst dissidents, criminals, and political antagonists. The Haitian exodus will be no different, only the dregs will come ashore on their own.

As far as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are concerned, Biden’s decision is not surprising.  Although the Communist threat is long gone – no one thinks of Soviet hegemony or Cuban complicity anymore.  The Bay of Pigs is an historical afterthought and Cuban doctors in Angola do not constitute a threat to anyone. While the only remaining Maoist state – North Korea – is definitely a political enemy, it is not because of Communism but dictatorship and brutal autocracy.  Nicaragua and Venezuela are run by petty dictators who have used their power and state authority to consolidate it and to rule unopposed.  Neither country represents some neo-domino threat.  It is only a matter of time before both are dismissed.

There is no reason to single out these countries except for the most antiquated, discredited reasons.  Why let their citizens in when a hundred countries in the world are more deserving.  What about those Africans living under brutal dictatorships in Rwanda, Chad, Angola, Ethiopia, Congo, Kenya, and a clutch of others?  Knee-jerk anti-Communist policies are no policies at all.  When Biden is asked why those countries out of the many more legitimately deserving, he demurs – he has not been properly aligned, cannot go off message, and mumbles his way to the wings. 

One can understand Venezuela.  A deal has been struck with Communist Maduro according to which America would now import both Venezuelan oil and in another Mariel boatlift accommodation, all Maduro’s political opponents, social trash, and classless undesirables.  But Cuba? The Castros are done and gone and the current regime if not moderate is at least not fiery anti-American as it was under the Old Guard.  Nicaragua? This small banana republic where political chaos is endemic and democratic rule a pipe dream is not worth a second thought.

So formerly illegal immigrants  from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti will get free passes to the US while the border remains porous and thousands of Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans pour across the Rio Grande to El Norte with impunity.  Although Biden has granted that some of the Trump era policies of interdiction and repatriation will be enforced, no one expects to see the flow north reduced to a trickle.

Yet the Administration is crowing – a victory, its spokespersons crow, a recognition of diversity and the law, a perfect combination of compassion and justice.  No one outside Washington is buying it.  Biden’s Johnny-come-lately trip to El Paso is too little, too late, nothing but political posturing and photo ops.  The governors of the border states have made it quite clear that Biden’s open door policy cannot stand, and Abbot and DeSantis with political reality wrapped in vaudevillian absurdity have shipped illegals to Martha’s Vineyard and the Vice President’s residence.

Every aspect of Biden’s approach to the border has been nonsensical.  No thoughts to assimilation, refugee tent cities, thousands on public welfare, drugs, arms, and discontent.  Diversity! replies Biden and his shills when questioned about the border.  More brown and black people are a good thing, absolutely.  More Salvadoran house painters, nannies, leaf-blowers, fruit pickers, and construction workers cannot be questioned.  No accounting necessary.

It is no surprise that the thousands of legal immigrants who waited their turn, filled out the paperwork, answered the most intrusive and personal questions about their lives and motives, are irked at the Biden open door policy.  No different than the thousands of Americans who borrowed for college and paid back their loans and now see a free ride offered to those who did not.  A necessary disconnect given the overwhelming need of the poor minorities suffering in ignorance? Or a moral failing?

‘What took you so long?’, ask many Texans and Arizonans of Biden who see their cities overrun with illegal entrants.   Kamala Harris, pronounced Immigration Czar by Biden but who never got further South than the Chesapeake Bay for a sailing holiday, never visited; and now that Biden has agreed to visit, he offers nothing but more confusion, a mishmash of contradictory ideas and fanciful, unrealistic notions.  ‘Go home’, is the unsurprising reaction to Biden’s stroll along the wall.

Trump’s policies, so long and so harshly received by progressives, now look good.  Trump saw no value added to unrestricted immigration.  There was the rule of law for starters, and the moral principle of doing the right thing by those who entered legally. He saw the likelihood of drugs, guns, and criminals crossing the border in increased numbers and amounts. He was not fooled by the families who callously rented children to help them get compassionate access to the US.  He took a principled stand – one based on law, economics, and social propriety, not some vague notion of ‘inclusivity’.  Biden knows that Trump is in the wings, so manages a trip south.

Immigration could well be Biden’s weakest point in the coming elections.  No one is happy with open doors, no one buys his diversity claim.  There are plenty of other weak points in his war room – energy, racial politics, drunken sailor spending, higher taxes, punitive economic and financial restrictions, absurdly authoritarian COVID restrictions, and much more; but immigration is the face of Biden and will do him in